There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUUseless laws weaken the necessary laws.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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A really intelligent man feels what other men only know.
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I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
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A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.
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An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
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When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.
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I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
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We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.
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Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
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That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
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We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
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Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.
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Wherever I find envy I take a pleasure in provoking it: I always praise before an envious man those who make him grow pale.
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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
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A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU